How to check the status of a news server?

[Yossarian]

When I check out usenet groups through Outlook Express, I see no new messages after 4pm yesterday. Checking the groups on Google shows lots of new stuff. How can I find out where the problem lies?

 

[Lord Evermore]

The file Outlook Express is using may be corrupted. You can easily have it recreated, but you may end up seeing all the old messages as new ones.

In the Outlook Express window, assuming you have the folder list open, right click and select Properties on the newsgroup (or use the File | Properties menu while in that group). Then click on the Local File tab.

To start with, click the "Delete" button. That will delete all the cached copies of the headers and postings, without wiping out the "remembered" counts of what posts you've seen. Confirm the deletion, then click OK and exit Outlook Express.

More than likely that won't fix it. Assuming it doesn't, you can go to back to the Local File tab, and this time click Reset. This will delete all data regarding that newsgroup, and it will be rebuilt next time you go into that group (you may need to exit Outlook Express and restart it). Of course, once you do this, all the groups will have to have their headers downloaded again, and all the old messages will be marked Unread.

If you have a lot of groups with this problem, you can go into the store folder OE uses and just delete the files manually. Just search for the file name for one of your groups with .dbx for an extension, then delete all the other group files. For instance if you subscribed to a group called alt.binaries.games, the filename would be alt.binaries.games.dbx. (OE will need to be closed when you do this.)